• Time Warner -- through its Warner Brothers and DC Comics subsidiaries are profiting most directly.
• Comcast Corporation (NYSE: CMCSA) partnered with Warner Bros. to offer "behind-the-scenes footage, trailers, and mini movies on demand"
• Verizon Communications, Inc. (NYSE: VZ) and Nokia Corporation (NYSE: NOK) collaborated in creating the Nokia6205 The Dark Knight Edition. Seeking Alpha reports that "This batphone targets superfans, with bat wallpaper, voice tones, screensavers, and the film's trailer pre-loaded."

Continue reading How to profit from the Dark Knight Industrial Complex

How to profit from the Dark Knight Industrial Complex originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Mon, 21 Jul 2008 18:09:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Time Warner's (NYSE: TWX) ownership of Superman is no longer absolute.

Some 70 years ago, Superman co-creator Jerome Siegel sold the rights to the hero to Detective Comics for $130. Detective Comics is now DC Comics and is owned by Time Warner unit Warner Bros.

Superman has been the subject of much legal wrangling over the years, a brief summary of which can be found on Wikipedia. On Wednesday, a federal judge ruled that Siegel's heirs were entitled to share of the copyright, but left Time Warner's international rights intact. How this will effect the future of Superman remains to be seen, as there is still much more legal wrangling to come.

It gets more complicated. According to the New York Times, "A similar ruling in 2006 allowed the Siegels to recapture their rights in the Superboy character, without determining whether Superboy was, in fact, the basis for Warner Brothers's 'Smallville' television series. The decision was later challenged in a case that has yet to be resolved, said Mr. Toberoff, who represented the family in that action."

If you're interested in learning more about the legal issues involved in comic book cases, check out this story from The National Law Journal.

Superman flies back to his creator's heirs originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Sun, 30 Mar 2008 10:10:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

A recent article in the Wall Street Journal discusses the efforts of some comic book publishers to reach out and attract female readers. Time Warner's (NYSE: TWX) DC Comics and Marvel Entertainment (NYSE: MVL) are among the industry leaders looking to find growth by targeting the 50% of the population that's been overlooked by publishers for decades. They're finding great success with sales of manga, a Japanese genre of animation.

The strategy of targeting women is brilliant, and very similar to what Nintendo has done with Wii, allowing it to thrash Sony's (NYSE: SNE) PlayStation 3 in the video game wars. While video games are wildly popular, it's still a relatively small percentage of the population that plays them fanatically. For years, game makers have been targeting that hardcore group and making little in the way of progress in attracting new gamers. With Wii, Nintendo essentially told Sony, "You can have those hardcore, graphics-obsessed video game geeks" and focused on developing a product that would have massive appeal, especially to those who probably wouldn't even consider buying a PlayStation.

Rather than battling Sony for market share with the the small fraction of game buyers, Wii went and expanded the market, bringing in new gamers. They kill Sony, essentially by not competing with them directly. It's a great strategy, and it will probably lead to great growth for the comic book industry as well.

Following in the footsteps of Wii: Comic publishers target women originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Sun, 10 Jun 2007 14:40:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Superman returns super-positive receipts for Imax originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Fri, 07 Jul 2006 11:40:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.